Son of a Gladiator
by FBSnightstalker
Summary: While not a direct Fanfic of Spartacus Blood and Sand I was inspired by the Finale of Spartacus War of the Damned and so thought I should post this here.
1. Chapter 1

**My first attempt at a short story, this is chapter 1. **

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Restlessness, impatience, short attention span. I read an old fiction book once where these were some of the symptoms of being a Greek Demi god. Shame the gods are dead.

Alongside the Greek and Roman gods with their statues smashed on the floor, the gods of the 20th century now lie. The crosses burnt and the symbols of the eastern world religions broken upon the dirt. I live in a world with no gods. Our life is our own and no one controls it. Sounds great right? That's what I thought initially.

In school we learnt of a great nation in the West that slowly and systematically, almost without anybody realising, taken over the continents of Asia and Africa. Eventually the entire globe except the continent of Europe was under their control. Then began the persecution. Twenty years it took for them to eliminate religion. Every church, mosque, any place of faith or religion was demolished. That is our history. Your future, these events occurred three hundred years ago. The date now is July the 4th 2412.

These are the times I live in; this is my story, my story of how I became a man.

I was nearly sixteen and as I remember it was just a normal day; old man Harbert had just finished teaching me and my class mates about the dark bringer. That's what they called the Europeans invention, their response to the western nation's aggressiveness. It plunged the majority of our world into darkness. It caused anything that ran off of electricity to stop working. No matter what had been done it couldn't be reversed. Next lesson we were going to learn about the world's civil war, where the whole planet erupted into violence.

We ran out into the sunshine out of the stuffiness of the classroom. Our village was pretty simple. Mud and brick huts with thatched roofs were organised around a solid wood and brick building that served as our community building. All of which was built next to a large river, vital for trade with other villages and for food. It was that river that we were running to. Some of the boys had gotten it into their heads that there was some sort of treasure in the river and they were going to dive in to get it.  
I was one of the kids at the front running as fast as I could. Out of my class, Jaden, Sarah and I were the fastest; we were always a good minute ahead of the rest. The river was pretty fast in the middle but at certain times of the day it was slow enough to cross by swimming. Fortunately that time coincided with when we got out of class. We messed around in that river most evenings for a couple of hours and then we'd make our way back to our mothers for a telling off and a warm tea.  
That evening Jaden beat me to the river's edge but I beat him in. While he was taking his shirt off I flipped off my sandals and jumped in fully clothed. We were best friends Jaden and I, always together we sat next to each other in class and played together outside of class and often spent the evenings round each other's homes. We played panicking preacher that day. We would all line up on one side of the river and elect one person to be the soldier; they would be in the middle of the river. When they said go we'd all try to swim to the other side without getting caught. If we were caught we became soldiers and helped in the catching. Predictably Sarah won. She was the only girl that played with us and she was the best swimmer. All the guys were pretty nervous of catching her because it would mean touching her in the water and that could get us in trouble with her father.  
After the game I went back to Jaden's where we fantasised about being soldiers in the nation's army and being able to use the weapons of the past. Guns that could fire bullets as fast as you could imagine and machines that could roll over any barricade and fire cannons from their front.

After tea at Jaden's house I went back to my house to find my mother already asleep. Looking back I wish I'd woken her, just to talk for a brief few minutes, to tell her I loved her and hug her one last time. How was I to know that that was the last time I would see her?

They came in the early hours of the morning. There were trumpet blasts from our sentries but they were too late. Within a minute the riders were in our village, their horses thundering past the huts. I remember that I woke to the sound of a scream. It wasn't like any scream I'd ever heard before. Eventually I would become accustomed to it but there, lying in my cot, it was the most frightening sound I'd ever heard. A scream that no human could ever make unless one thing was happening, they were dying. At that point I got out of my cot and walked to the door of our hut.

The first thing I saw was the hut opposite mine on fire. There were men moving around that I'd never seen before. I scrambled out of my hut and hid under an over-turned wagon. I still wasn't sure what was going on, but the people that I could see were rugged looking men. Most had beards and scraggly hair. I looked around panicked. From where I was there was little I could see but something caught my eye. Somebody was exciting Jaden's hut. It was one of the strange me, the recognition of which instantly worried me. Behind him he dragged Jaden's mother out of the hut. He was pulling her by a fistful of her hair. She was screaming and crying but the man was just laughing. Her dress had been ripped open from the shoulder to the waist leaving her half naked. She sank to the ground, refusing to move any further. The man slapped her across the face before picking her up and slinging her over his shoulder. She was kicking and punching still but the man was unphased by it. The man walked straight past the wagon which I was hidden under causing me to cower into the shadows. Then, to my surprise, Jaden came running out of the hut clutching a fishing knife and yelling at the man. Hearing him yell, the man turned around. While using one hand to keep Jaden's mother on his shoulder he used the other to unsheathe a sword and fling it in Jaden's direction. Jaden was too close for me to see what had happened, but I heard his yell cut short. Then I saw the fishing knife fall to the ground next to me. And then he collapsed on the ground right in-front of the wagon I was cowering under. My best friend of fifteen years lay dying, a sword straight through his chest.

He turned to face me and his lips moved, but no words came from them. I remember his eyes; I'll never forget the way he looked at me, begging for help. Help I refused to give. I crawled backwards away from him and away from the man who was, as I moved out from the cover of the wagon, walking over to collect his sword from Jaden's body. I crawled until I was on the opposite side of the wagon. And then I got up and ran. I ran as fast as I could for the river. I remember thinking that if I could just cross the river I may be able to escape. I did look back, weirdly, that was my mistake. I saw the man bend over to retrieve his sword. I stopped. I didn't stop because I wanted to, I stopped because I'd run into something, well, someone. The man was another one of the strangers. But he was much bigger than the others. Furs were wrapped around his shoulders and he had pelt skin trousers on. Various knives hung from his waist and as he turned around I backed away in fear. He had a long grizzly scar running down the left hand side of his face. It crossed over his eye, an eye which was completely blank. He took a step towards me and I tripped over something. I fell to my knees tried to crawl away from this monster of a man. Then he grabbed me by the Jerkin and lifted me clean off the floor.

I think that was the most terrified I'd ever been in my life. He picked me up and turned me around setting me down in-front of him. Looking up at him I started begging for my life. It's not exactly a moment I'm proud of, but then I was only a boy at the time. He looked down at me with a disgusted look on his face and unslung a great big axe that had been on his back. At that point I fainted, again, not something I'm particularly proud of but I swore to recount my tale as it happened so there it is. I fled from my dying friend and then after begging for my life fainted in the face of death.

I woke to the sound of a donkey braying. It annoyed me and I sat up cursing, my head was throbbing and it took me awhile to remember the events of the night. It was with a start that I recognised my surroundings. I sat with three other youths from my village in a wooden cage being pulled on a wagon by two horses. Beside us was another wagon with a cage on it containing more people. Behind us trailed five more wagons with identical loads. And in-front of us walked about twenty men all in chains. In-front of them two by two rode what I estimated to be around 50 men all in the same garb as the man I had fainted in front of. Where we were headed I did not know but one thing was certain. I was no longer safe in my village, the storied of slavers and barbarians had caught up with me. I was a prisoner.


	2. Chapter 2

**Im sorry for how long this has taken, life has been busy as have the 2 RP's i partake in, just wanna say a special thanks to Restrained Freedom and Kumar for giving me the motivation to continue. (Just a warning will probably be a chapter a month...ish. I'm moving to Uni this week(If anyone is interested in being a Beta reader for my next chapter please pm me or leave a review thanks)) This Chapter is UnBetad so I apologize for any grammatical errors and the such but also thanks for following this story:)**

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I woke to the sight of the now familiar bars that made up the cage I was in. We'd been travelling for several days now. The men who seemed to be leading the procession had pushed hunks of bread and small bowls of water through the bars twice daily. While this managed to sustain me I had gradually begun to lose weight and I was longing for a bite of meat or even vegetables, anything other than the practically stale bread and the metallic water that we were being given.

The first two days of our travel were through land similar to that which my village had been built upon, scrubland with clumps of trees dotted here and there. The third day saw a slow decrease in the numbers of trees and then grasses as we entered the desert. It was on the fourth day that one of the boys I was sharing my cage with spoke up. I hadn't attempted conversation beforehand; I'd been content to absorb all that my eyes could see around me. The boy was from a village to the north of mine. Unlike how I'd been captured he and a number of other villagers had been sold to these men as a way of stopping them burning down the village. Part of me felt sorry for him but then at least he knew his family were still alive. I had no clue what had happened to anybody from my village.

He explained to me that the men who'd taken us were slavers. They'd been forced further south than they normally went on their raids due to a sand storm, unfortunately for me that had brought them into contact with my village.

That night the wagons were arranged in a circle and the slavers lit a large fire in the middle. They talked and sang in a language that I could not understand but to my ears it sounded pretty rough, like a series of grunts with a few consonants thrown In. They drank a drink with a foul smell from large leather horns that I could only guess was some sort of alcohol and they ate some sort of meat straight off the bone. They seemed to be in higher spirits than they had been the past few days. I remember thinking that perhaps our journey was nearly over.

After a long time spent drinking and eating the slavers opened one of the cages on the back of a wagon. It was slightly out of my line of sight but I heard them shouting and then they re-emerged pushing a group of four young men probably only a little older than I was at the time. They split the men up and arranged them around the fire like the points of a compass. Then a man, one of the slavers. Handed out swords and began shouting at the young men. A captive in the cage next to us translated. "You shall fight. If you don't then you die." I looked around and saw that everybody else, those in the cages and those outside of them, were watching intently. Yet none of the young men looked like they wanted to fight. Then the same man who had handed out the swords walked over to each of the men individually and paused to speak in their ear.

I never learnt what he said to each of them then but it is still something that intrigues me to this day. As he left the last man I could see their expressions had changed. They gripped the swords tighter and their stances changed slightly. They were no longer reluctant; it seemed they were eager to fight.

That was the first real sword fight to the death I'd ever witnessed. It was all over in just a couple of minutes. None of the captives had survived long, one had turned and fled being cut down by one of the slavers. The two final combatants had killed each other at the same time. The slavers seemed to find that funny. They exchanged money with each other, it seemed that the only point of the fight was to give them something for them to bet on. The next morning we continued on our journey, we were allowed an extra cup of water that day due to the heat.

It was around late afternoon when the first houses became visible on the horizon. The members of the cage I was in all stood up as to see better. The houses were built of sandstone giving them a beige, weather beaten look. Not all that ornate or magnificent, but to a village dweller like me it may as well have been one of the castles of old. As we got closer the building turned into a collection of buildings. There was a stable to the left with space for around five horses. The large two storey main building was in the middle and then another single storey building that looked like some sort of storehouse was situated on the right. Around all of this was a wall made out of the clay brick with a metal gate in the front.

Our caravan of wagons and men stopped before the large walls surrounding the building. The slavers came and began sorting through the different cages. They seemed to be selecting the largest of the men, those more muscular. Then they came to my cage and unlocked it. They ushered all of us out and lined us up behind the men.

While the building in front of us impressed me I would soon learn that it was quite a standard building in the area. The only outward sign of wealth was the metal gate and the guards that opened said gate when we approached. As we were walked through the gates the guards watched us, their eyes full of distrust and suspicion. The Slavers had chained us all together and now began ordering us into a line those of us that didn't begin moving quick enough got lashed by a rope whip that one of the slavers was holding. I saw one man fall after the whip hit him in the back of the legs. The slavers immediately grabbed him, unchained him and paraded him back to the wagons.

I had no clue what was going on but from the way we were standing in front of the building it looked like we were to be inspected. I remember looking up and down the line and a slaver shouting at me to look forward. It was as I turned back to face the buildings that the front door of the main building opened and a man that I could only guess was the man of the house walked out. A small crowd of people dressed in robes followed him carrying plates of food and ornate cups of water. They went to the slavers and offered these while the man walked up to the first man in the line.

The man was dressed in a loose long sleeved red shirt unbuttoned at the top. He had on some sort loose trousers made of a cream material which I would soon learn were called Harati. He started measuring the first man in the line, feeling his arms and thighs. He punched him in the stomach and then checked his teeth. He nodded to the lead slaver and then continued down the line repeating the process. Those that he gave the nod too were taken over to the left and kept in a group. Those that the man passed over were taken back to the wagon. Eventually the man came to the boys who had been in the same cage as me. He shrugged and made some comment to the Slaver in a language I couldn't understand then shouted towards the group of people in robes stood outside the main building.

The group parted and a Woman dressed in a dark green robe with light yellow trim walked down the steps, a bare-chested man walked down next to her holding an umbrella made of a fine soft looking material to protect her from the hottest of the suns rays. The woman talked to the man briefly and then turned to us. She smiled at the five of us and motioned for us to lift out arms. She squeezed our arms checking our muscles then squeezed our thighs. After that she checked the condition of our teeth and feet. At these two checks one of the boys was sent back to the wagon. She turned around and motioned for one of the group standing on the steps to come forward. They hurried over to her, head bowed, carrying a tray which the woman took off of her and passed to us. By watching the proceedings and from some conversations I'd picked up on the way here I guessed that this lady was the lady of the house and that while her husband had been selecting fighting men she was selecting slaves for the house tasks. As a result when I took the tray from her I stood as straight as I could and stared forwards, I didn't want to spend any more time in that cage than was necessary. She nodded at me and took the tray back gesturing for me to follow the woman who'd brought the tray over. I followed the woman over to the left standing a little distance from the men and watched as the other two were checked a little further and then also sent over to where I was stood.

We were left to stand there for a good few minutes while the lady, her husband and the leader of the slavers talked, I later heard that the slaver had tried to charge an extraordinary price for us and that what took so long was the man, our new owner, telling him just why he refused to pay such a price and then making a price of his own. When they had finished talking the group I was with was escorted inside the house.

I can't really remember much of my first impressions of that building. Perhaps it had just hit me that I had just been sold as a slave or maybe it was the lack of decent food and drink for the past few days, either way the next five or ten minutes are little more than a blur. I was taken to a bathing room where a house slave had the honours of 'cleansing' me. This involved scrubbing me viciously all over my body with some sort of rough pad. Then covering me in some slimy sweet smelling concoction and then dunking me under water.


End file.
